Last week’s strategy: Sensory Hijack

The body believes what the mind resists.

Anyone try it? Did you make your audience physically uncomfortable — on purpose?

Week 4 gave you a new lens: timing changes everything.

The Duck Curve showed you that solar energy isn’t just about how much — it’s about when.

• The sun shines when you don’t need power.
• Demand peaks exactly when supply drops.
• A “clean” grid can collapse if you ignore the clock.

System boundaries aren’t just spatial — they’re temporal. And that matters even more when you scale up to cities.

Last week: “When does the energy flow?”

This week: “What did we build — and what does it cost the planet?”

Same systems thinking. Biggest system boundary yet.

A city is the ultimate system — energy, water, waste, transport, people — all interacting inside a boundary of concrete and glass that traps heat, consumes resources, and reshapes the climate around it.

Your toolkit is growing: Spectacle Formula → Complexity → System Boundaries → Timing → now: the built environment as climate actor.

This is what a city looks like to a thermometer.

Keep this tension in mind. It’ll shape everything we discuss today.

Cities cover just 3% of the Earth’s land surface.

They produce over 70% of global CO₂ emissions.

And consume 78% of the world’s energy.

The built environment isn’t just affected by climate change. It’s driving it.

• By 2050, 68% of the world’s population will live in cities (UN)

• NYC’s Central Park can be up to 5°C cooler than the streets just 200 metres away — same day, same city

• Vienna turns 250,000 tonnes of garbage into heat for 60,000 homes — in a building designed by an artist

• Hong Kong buildings account for over 60% of the city’s electricity consumption — and 90% of that electricity comes from fossil fuels

Anthropogenic: of, relating to, or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature.

You’ve heard this in Week 2 (food systems), Week 3 (fashion), Week 4 (energy).

But this week it becomes architectural. The question isn’t just what we consume — it’s what we build.

Buildings don’t just use energy. They shape the microclimate of the city around them.

Characteristics:

• High population density
• Diverse cultural and economic activities
• Complex infrastructure systems
• Unique blend of modern and traditional architecture
• Hub for innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity
• Centre for education, healthcare, and entertainment

Challenges:

• Traffic congestion and air pollution
• Inadequate housing and overcrowding
• Strain on public services and infrastructure
• Affordability crises
• Reverse Urbanization — the suburban pull

• Economic Opportunities: Jobs, pay grades, larger talent pool, startup ecosystems
• Cultural Diversity & Entertainment: Theatre, museums, people
• Education & Research: Universities, institutions
• Infrastructure & Transportation: Connectivity
• Networking & Collaboration: Proximity = opportunity

The metropolis is a climate problem and a climate solution. That’s the paradox.

Definition: The process of metropolitan residents moving out.

Known causes:

• Housing affordability
• High cost of living
• Crowdedness

Impact:

• Shift in population dynamics
• Growth in smaller cities and towns
• What does it mean for the metropolis?

When people flee cities, does the climate problem follow them — or just spread out?

Every surface you see in a city — concrete, glass, asphalt, steel — absorbs heat during the day and radiates it at night.

This makes metropolitan areas 1–3°C hotter than surrounding rural areas.

That’s not weather. That’s architecture.

This is the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect — and it’s why your city is literally hotter than the countryside.

It’s not just discomfort. The UHI effect triggers a cascade:

1. Higher temperatures → more air conditioning demand
2. More AC → more electricity consumption
3. More electricity → more fossil fuel burning (remember: HK is 90% fossil-powered)
4. More burning → more heat → the city gets even hotter

This is a positive feedback loop. The hotter the city gets, the more energy it uses to cool down, which makes it hotter.

UHI is Week 10’s “systems thinking” in miniature. Remember this when we get there.

Vox (~7 min). Thermal cameras reveal Phoenix’s UHI. The twist: wealthy neighbourhoods are cooler than poor ones. Heat is an inequality problem.

3% of land.

70% of CO₂.

That’s cities. That’s us.

Five ways growing architecture affects climate:

NYC’s population has remained relatively steady despite everything — because of:

• Diverse economy (finance, tech, creative industries)
• World-class cultural offerings (museums, Broadway, food)
• Continued investment in infrastructure and public services

The city continues to attract people due to its unique combination of known and unknown opportunity.

But here’s the thing: NYC’s Central Park — 3.4 km² of green — drops the temperature around it by up to 5°C compared to Midtown. One park. Five degrees.

How it works:

• Converts solid waste materials into usable energy
• Combustion/thermal treatment of waste
• Heat produces steam → drives turbines → generates electricity

Why it matters:

• Worldwide WtE market to reach USD $66 billion by 2032 (Spherical Insights, 2023)
• Recovers resources, reduces landfill use (methane drop)
• Reduces reliance on fossil fuels

But is burning waste really “clean”? That depends on where you draw the system boundary. (Sound familiar?)

A 1960s incinerator, redesigned in the 1980s by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

The numbers:

• Processes 250,000 tonnes of waste per year
• Generates 60 GWh of electricity
• Produces 500 GWh of district heating
• Heats ~60,000 Viennese homes

An incinerator that people want to visit. A tourist attraction. Architecture solving a climate problem while looking good doing it.

LA’s approach to water scarcity — a preview of what many cities will face:

• TIP 1: Leverage to save water while using water (efficiency at point of use)
• TIP 2: Limit/stop using water under certain scenarios (restrictions)
• TIP 3: Free government service to audit your private water system
• TIP 4: Rebate for changing landscaping to drought-tolerant plants (“Cash for Grass”)

Notice: these are a mix of individual behaviour change and structural incentives. That tension will explode in Week 6 when we talk about capitalism.

What/how/why might you care about this topic?

• Livelihood planning: Future career/family plans — choosing between metropolis and countryside/suburbs
• Beyond simple engagement: Tree-planting campaigns, local community gardens, community-based sustainability efforts
• Alternatives to city life: What does it mean to move to suburbs — economically and environmentally?

HeGang (鶴崗) in China: a city where apartments cost less than a phone. Is that the future — or just urban decay with a viral marketing campaign?

“This house believes that Hong Kong should prioritise green retrofitting of existing buildings over new development to meet its 2050 carbon neutrality target.”

PRO-CLIMATE: Retrofit first — new builds are carbon-heavy.

PRO-DEVELOPMENT: Build new, build efficient — retrofitting old buildings is a money pit.

Before this week, “climate change” might have felt like an atmosphere problem.

Now you know: every building is a climate decision.

• What it’s made of (concrete = 8% of global CO₂)
• How it’s cooled (AC → fossil fuels → more heat)
• Where it’s placed (UHI feedback loop)
• What happens to its waste (landfill vs. WtE)

Your portable takeaway: The built environment isn’t background — it’s the biggest system boundary we’ve seen yet.

Realtors show you a terrible, overpriced house first.

The second house — still overpriced — looks reasonable.

You don’t evaluate houses. You evaluate differences from the anchor.

This is Anchoring (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).

The first number you hear distorts all subsequent judgment — even when it’s obviously irrelevant.

In experiments, people estimated higher values after spinning a random wheel with higher numbers.

The brain cannot ignore the anchor.

When someone opened with an extreme number:

“AI could consume 30% of global electricity by 2040. Even the conservative estimate is 12%.”

Now 12% sounds reasonable. But 12% is still catastrophic.

The anchor did its job.

Lead with the extreme. Then offer the “reasonable” version.

Set the anchor before they do.